#Guardians of Time

[theheroheart]

There was a lot of things I loved about that episode, and roughly a billion references to older canon, but I'm always gonna hook onto the weird obscure stuff.

Specifically the shit about the Guardians.

Cause yes, on-screen we've had the White Guardian (order) and the Black Guardian (chaos). Yes they have birds on their heads don't worry about it.

But like he says, THERE IS PLAY. Because there's also sources saying that the Celestial Toymaker is the Crystal Guardian. Dreams and imagination, another dimension of the universe. (It's never great for the universe when any of these guys show up in physical form.) The Toymaker himself claims that he and the other guardians are Great Old Ones from the pre-universe.

(Google "rassilon omega and that other guy" to find the source for this, a deeply comprehensive timeline of the entire whoniverse.)

WHICH IS EXTRA INTERESTING given you then get this line from the Toymaker:

Note that there are no guardians of the spacetime dimensions. The "Guardians of Time" refers to Black/White, and possibly the others.

You may notice the Doctor is also on this list, as the Red Guardian of justice and morality. Which is all I could think about for this:

((PS: This also ties in with the slightly more bonkers theory that the Doctor is themself a Great Old One, specifically Nyarlathotep. There's basis for this in some books, but that's a whole nother thing.))

Given the context we now know from the Timeless Child being reaffirmed, there's just something meaningful about "THE Time Lord" in connection with the Toymaker and the Guardians.

Especially given several accounts say the Great Old Ones were from the previous universe, and were the equivalent of Time Lords in that universe.

Which ties really interestingly into Tecteun's claim that the Doctor was from the next universe, and wanted to go there with them.

So anyway yes the Doctor is a traumatised lil bean just trying their goshdarn best.

And they're also a "face concealing a vastness that will never cease" like the Toymaker.

Cause that's also the show. A vastness that will never cease.

[intuitive-revelations]

Trying to put together a pseudo-theory/diagram about the Guardians of Time / Six-Fold God and how the Toymaker, Maestro, Harbinger etc. fit into it...

... and man does it annoy me we're somehow now up to seven Guardians instead of six in the expanded universe.

This was going to be a quick rant, but has somehow turned into more of a full dissection, so buckle in for some major overthinking about Doctor Who lore from someone who has other stuff they should be focusing on.

History of the Guardians in the DWEU

To recap, we're introduced to two guardians in The Ribos Operation:

White Guardian: Light and Order

Black Guardian: Darkness and Chaos

1980s Doctor Who Magazine stories like The Legacy of Gallifrey and Power to the People continue to depict just these two (though the prior is filtered through a possibly unreliable in-universe narrator and the latter is fairly tongue in cheek). These give two possible origins of the Guardians of Time.

The prior implies the White and Black Guardians were manifested by Rassilon from within the Matrix, and entrusted with the Key to Time. While the wiki suggests this somewhat aligns with a comment by the Tenth Doctor in a recent book suggesting Rassilon could be considered a singular 'Guardian of Time' (a bit more on this book later), I wouldn't put much stock into it. Reading it now, The Legacy of Gallifrey is filled with a number of inaccuracies (though tbf, this may be more a matter of its publication date than any writing error) and as a whole comes across somewhat as pro-Rassilon propaganda, something somewhat supported by the ambiguous framing device.

The latter notably depicts the Guardians as having been a single entity of the same species as capital-G God, but split into two once God placed them in the universe. Interestingly, this does somewhat align with the later Big Finish depiction of the Guardians as below the "Grace", god-like being(s) from outside the universe.

We then get Divided Loyalties, which clarifies there's six in all, similarly forming a 'Six-Fold God'. This is directly connected to the existence of six parts of the Key to Time. It also names two more:

Crystal Guardian: Dream and Fantasy (supposedly the Toymaker)

Red Guardian: Justice and Truth

Also mentioned are "twin Guardians" of something, though the Toymaker cuts himself off before finishing.

Divided Loyalites provides an alternative account of Rassilon's meeting with the Black and White Guardians and his naming of the Great Old Ones. Rassilon speculates that the Great Old Ones are the Time Lord equivalents of another universe. Though he only knows of the two, somewhat fitting The Legacy of Gallifrey's telling (also by Gary Russell), he speculates that there may be more Guardians: Guardians of Justice, Mortality and/or Imagination. Also, fitting the idea that the previous story might have been propaganda, Mortimus dismisses this new account as 'rubbish', for "What can be more advanced than the Time Lords?". Finally, somewhat contradicting the rest of the book, the record suggests there could be more than one being known as 'Toymakers', perhaps supporting the concept of him having his own 'pantheon' as we are seeing now.

This idea of there being six Guardians is later supported by the more recent "The Whoniverse" reference book, which depicts six Guardians at the beginning of the universe, though admittedly there is room for more off-image, if one assumes they're spread evenly in a circle.

Craig Hinton expanded on Divided Loyalties's ideas, as well as those from books like Millennial Rites, in The Quantum Archangel. This is most explicitly shown in his writing notes published in Shelf Life, where the Guardians are envisioned as the high eschelons of the previous universe's Time Lords, a bit like the other Great Old Ones, and also seemingly welding this version of the Toymaker's origins with the original concept of him being one of the Doctor's people (which still may or may not be true, depending on the Doctor's origins). They also consider the Eternals and Chronovores their children. He gives a list of six Guardians, higher Time Lords (mostly) from the previous universe, who act as vessels for fundamental elements of the new universe:

The White Guardian – The Guardian of Light in Time, the Guardian of Structure, He Who Walks In Light.

The Black Guardian – The Guardian of Dark in Time, the Guardian of Chaos, the Guardian of Entropy, He Who Walks in Darkness.

The Red Guardian – The Guardian of Justice and Morality in Time, the Guardian of Right, He Who Walks in Judgement. Eventually, this will be the Doctor (see Aspects of Evil).

The Azure Guardians – The Guardians of Balance in Time, the Guardians of Equilibrium, They Who Walk Both Paths.

The Crystal Guardian – The Guardian of Thought in Time, the Guardian of Dreams, He Who Walks in Dreams. Also known as the Celestial Toymaker…

The Gold Guardian – The Guardian of Life in Time, the Guardian of Sentience, He Who Walks in Life.

He also identifies them respectively as the equivalents of the following of the previous universe's "Time Lords" (as they're not literally so, I'll refer to them as 'Pre-Time Lords' from here on out):

President – Black

Chancellor – White

Castellan – Azure

Matrix Keeper – Crystal

The Renegade – Red

The Matrix – Gold

Notably there are some odd 'asymmetries'. For one thing, the Azure Guardian seems to actually be made up of two beings (if they're a former Pre-Time Lord, maybe they "bigenerated"?), presumably being the 'twin Guardians' mentioned in Divided Loyalties. Meanwhile, the Gold Guardian, instead of perhaps being the Pre-Time Lords' Gold Usher equivalent, is actually a manifestation of their version of the Matrix.

The Red Guardian is also notable for being a renegade - the equivalent of the Doctor of the previous universe. Per Aspects of Evil, a Hinton story published in the charity anthology Missing Pieces, the Doctor in-fact not only was once the Renegade/Red Guardian, who may also be the Other (and thus the Timeless Child?), but eventually will be again once their life is over.

Regardless, all seems well and good: we now have six members of our "six-fold God" of ambiguous origins. While we do see a 'Beige Guardian' and hear about a 'Green Guardian' in Happy Deathday, a 35th anniversary DWM comic, these are seemingly entirely fictional in-universe, characters in a video game played by Izzy Sinclair.

More recently, the Leftbridge-Stewart series has dipped its toes into this part of the lore, with the Azure Guardian actually appearing in-person in An Ordinary Man. Interestingly, he is also referred to as the "Rainbow Guardian of the Quantum Realm". While the rainbow element is a bit unclear, the 'quantum' aspect may suggest his two-part nature relates to quantum superposition and entanglement.

A few months later, this is followed by another Leftbridge-Stewart story, The George Kostinen Mystery, which features the "Silver Guardian of Space and Matter"...

...which is a problem.

Now we're seemingly stuck with seven Guardians, not six. (Or arguably eight, if you count the Azure Guardian twice.)

An Aside: Time Lord Legends for Time Tots

Arguably we might even have two or three more Guardians too! That Tenth Doctor novel I mentioned earlier, Legends of Camelot, features a Time Lord legend naming more, based on Arthurian lore. Removing Ten and Donna's interjections and comments, the full thing reads:

Once upon some times, in a universe before and after our own, two powers existed: the Guardian of Might and the Guardian of Magic. In an endless battle, the Guardian of Might would try to defeat the Guardian of Magic through strength, and she would try to defeat him through cunning. Yet so closely aligned were they that neither could ever triumph. The Guardian of Might, known as Arthur, wished for the universe to be ruled by order. The Guardian of Magic, known as Morgwen, championed the forces of chaos. The fight continued until their very universe grew close to collapse, but neither would concede. The final hope was Merlin. Merlin, Champion of Neutrality, offered a solution. No more stars would be razed, no more galaxies destroyed. He took one small planet and created on it a scenario that was designed to encompass both might and magic, order and chaos – a scenario of swords and sorcery, knights and monsters, honour and deception. Each Guardian would choose a player, and the game would play out as it may, until one side had triumphed. The war would be over, the universe would be rebuilt. The Guardians agreed, and the game was played. Arthur chose a player and gave him his name, and Morgwen did the same, with Merlin as the neutral adjudicator. But the final triumph never came. If ever Arthur approached victory, Morgwen would force a reset and choose a new player, hoping for a different outcome. Merlin discovered her perfidy, and knew his plan had failed – and that other dimensions were now threatened too. While the two Guardians were distracted by their game, he compressed reality around them. Like carbon into diamond, so their dimension became the Druse, known also as the Crystal Cavern – a place imbued with such powers it would send them into the deepest possible sleep. Yet the Guardians were so mighty, it could not be guaranteed that sleep would last for all eternity. Merlin therefore imprisoned himself with them and joined the Guardians in their slumber within the Druse. He recreated the game scenario in his dreams and fed it into theirs. Thus, believing they were still playing the game, the endless battle between might and magic, Arthur and Morgwen would not realise they were imprisoned and so would not attempt to escape. And still they sleep, and still they fight, and so will it continue within time and without time, eternally and never. Yet travellers in eternity beware, and approach not the Druse, lest you rouse the sleepers and bring their fight to your reality.

Now are these 'Guardians' actually connected to the Guardians of Time?

I think...sort of.

The descriptions of each one certainly sound like they match the scale of the Guardians of Time, as does their behaviour, being convinced not to fight each other directly, causing intergalactic scale damage (as we discover the Toymaker is capable of in our universe in The Giggle), but instead by influencing mortals, or ephermals.

They also seem to match certain roles seen in the Guardians of Time. The Guardian of Might champions order, like the White Guardian, while the Guardian of Magic champions chaos, like the Black. Meanwhile "Merlin", who may or may not be a Guardian himself, champions neutrality and acts to bring balance, similar to the Azure and Red Guardians. Of course, while this shows a clear similarity between this book's Guardians and the Guardians of Time, it also implies they're redundant.

The solution seems to appear in the detail that these Guardians, even in their empowered forms, originate in another universe. Which universe is less clear, as they seem to exist parallel to N-Space, but also "before and after our own". Either way, it suggests that the same history that led to the Guardians and Great Old Ones entering N-Space (and the Division trying to escape to the next universe in Flux), may have occured before, whether as part of the same universal cycle, as part of the Dark Times, or within a completely separate universe.

Whether this version of "Merlin" connects to the Doctor and/or Red Guardian, however, is another question entirely. Ten actually mentions his recurring role as Merlin in the book, but say he definitely wasn't this one (yet anyway).

Back to the Silver Guardian

So we can discount Legends of Camelot's Guardians, but what about the "Silver Guardian of Space and Matter"?

Well... I see two possible approaches to fix this, without fully ignoring any member of the group.

On one hand, technically there is some ambiguity over whether the Guardians have jurisdiction over just Time, or both Space and Time (and presumably the whole universe). While the prior is the classic name, most descriptions suggest the latter. Even The Giggle explicitly refers to them as "The Guardians of Time and Space".

One could argue, therefore, that it might be that only the "Guardians of Time" are limited to six, and there could be more outside of that number serving the rest of the universe. If so, then the Guardian of Space and Matter might be part of this latter group.

However, it's pretty hard to justify the other Guardians not including space as part of their domains. It should also be noted that when the Toymaker says there are six Guardians in Divided Loyalties, he is explicitly referring to "Guardians of the Universe", seemingly nixing this theory.

On the other hand, a group of six + more is a surprisingly common theme throughout the Doctor Who universe, specifically in Gallifreyan culture. There are six chapters, but also the shadow-y CIA (not to mention other organisations, some of which even refer to themselves as 'chapters', like "Chapter 9" and "The Final Chapter"). There are six founders, of somewhat ambiguous identities, which may or may not include the Other, who may be a seventh. Even Gallifreyan numerology seems to reflect this, with circular Gallifreyan using a base-7 number system:

(There are also six known Menti Celesti, which seemingly lines up with this too. However, we've yet to learn of a seventh at the current time, so who knows? That being said, unlike the Guardians (for the most part, more later), the Menti Celesti seem to exist in opposite pairs: Life and Death, Pain and Hope, Time and Fate, so they may not follow the same pattern.)

This could suggest a seventh 'shadow' Guardian, separate from the other six. Our sources so far would suggest it's the Silver Guardian, given they weren't included in previous accounts, but this doesn't seem to match what little we know about them.

Other possible candidates could be the Crystal Guardian (given the Toymaker's uniqueness, not to mention 'Crystal' not exactly matching the colour naming scheme, though silver technically doesn't either - perhaps he was being unreliable in including himself as one of six in Divided Loyalties), or perhaps the Red Guardian, given their connections to the Doctor/Other, who might also be a shadow-y seventh figure in the founders of Gallifrey.

Alternatively, it could be the Azure or Golden Guardians, both unique in their own ways, the prior consisting of two entities, the latter having formed from something like the Matrix (and thus possibly consisting of many, many individual beings).

A Possible Fix?

While I'm not sure if this is the theory I'll stick with in the future, I do have my own interpretation which might offer a solution.

I think it's notable that among the 'main six', only the two members we've seen the most, the Black and White Guardians, seem to serve as direct opposites to one another.

Order/Chaos.

Light/Darkness.

It is also only these two that directly seem to link to 'Time'. The White Guardian represents order, the Black, entropy. While the exact nature of time remains uncertain to physicists, one common definition uses the arrow of time enforced by the second law of thermodynamics: the rule that over time, the universe will approach a state of chaos over order. Over time, the entropy of the universe tends to a maximum.

(This can also be applied to discussions of the Big Bang and possible fates of the universe, including the concept of repeating universes, either by quantum fluctuations long after heat death, or by cyclical processes like the Big Crunch/Bounce, something also relevant to discussions of the Guardians.)

This leads us to two conclusions:

If there is a divide between the "Guardians of Time" and the rest of the "Guardians of the Universe", it's probably around the Black and White Guardians, explaining their prominence.

The nature of the Black and White Guardians may be unique, even compared to the other Guardians.

To expand on point 2, I think it's possible that Power to the People was more accurate than we've given it credit for. While the idea of the Guardians splitting from one 'god' could be interpreted as connected to their joint identity as the 'six-fold God', it's not very compatible with the more common version of their origin as individual Pre-Time Lords.

(Unless one imagines the Pre-Time Lords all being in their 'Matrix' at the time of their entry into N-Space, I suppose, with the Gold Guardian once being all of them? Hmm... that's not part of this theory, but I suppose could be utilised as part of an alternative at a later point...)

Instead perhaps the White and Black Guardians alone were once a single "Guardian of Time", one of the six, before fracturing into two?

This may not even be that unique a circumstance. As we've acknowledged, the Azure Guardian is somehow made up of two entities, and we know there may be multiple Toymakers, not to mention his "sister" Hecuba, plus Maestro and Harbinger (though their nature might be different - as we mentioned before, the Guardians consider Eternals and Chronovores their children, so it may be that Maestro is less a Guardian and more one of these).

However, perhaps the strongest evidence other than Power to the People itself might be in one of Hinton's stories I've previously mentioned.

Aspects of Evil depicts a far-future Doctor, on the verge of death. He is approached by the White and Black Guardians who reveal that he has all his life actually acted as a servant of the Black Guardian, and a force for chaos in the universe, in combat with forces like the Daleks and Cybermen, who were always acting to impose their own "order" on it.

Along with these forces, the Valeyard is named as the Doctor's direct opposite, serving the White Guardian's goals as they served the Black's.

Not the Master, born alongside the Doctor, but the Valeyard, who was split off from them.

I think this may be a sign that the White and Black Guardians have exactly the same relationship. They weren't born together as opposites, but emerged as such, split off from one another.

One could even make the argument that they represent exactly the same thing (albeit, with Aspect of Evil's revelation, in reverse). The Valeyard represents an inevitable evil to the Doctor's good, emerging far in his future. The Black Guardian represents an inevitable chaos to the White Guardian's order, again emerging far in his future, just by the natural consequence of entropy.

Thus our final six-fold line-up of Guardians of the (current) Universe, ignoring any off-spring, reincarnations and such, might look like the following:

The (Grey?) Guardian of Time, split into the White Guardian of Light and Order and the Black Guardian of Darkness and Chaos.

The Red Guardian of Justice and Truth

The Gold Guardian of Life and Sentience

The Azure (and Rainbow?) Twin Guardians of Equilibrium and the Quantum Realm

The Crystal Guardian of Dreams and Fantasy

The Silver Guardian of Space and Matter

It's definitely messy, but might be the best fit for now. However this very much remains an open question, and there's lots of alternative solutions that could be proposed...

...

(...or you could just do the sane thing and ignore the inconsistency.)

[70sscifiart]

1970 Paul Lehr cover art for Guardians of Time, by Poul Anderson

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

𝔊𝔲𝔞𝔯𝔡𝔦𝔞𝔫𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔗𝔦𝔪𝔢 - 𝔐𝔦𝔡𝔫𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱 ℭ𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔢

[mrsroryhuntzberger]

I was reminded of the guardians of time books so I’m sharing this iconic and very accurate tweet imo

Arkarian deserves to say fuck @ Marianne Curley pls give him this

[ithinkdogshouldvote]

Guardian swap au for 4/13 ^ ^

[uncharted-constellations]

The Princess and Hero of the First Great Calamity

The orange snoot is very important to me….

[sailoreddy]

[intuitive-revelations]

Three fold deity could be the Gods of Ragnarok from The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, since they were gods and there were three of them.

True... but I don't think Raag, Nah and Rok have ever been linked with "Malice, Mischief, and Misery"?

For now I'm assuming they're meant to be something different (after all, if they were intended to be the Gods of Ragarok, why wouldn't we just say that - especially with Fifteen having mentioned them already in The Giggle). Obvious death of the author applies, however, so we could always come back to them and link them in the future. Maybe we'll get something in the novelisation.

This all being said, if we go back to Craig Hinton's mythos again (which granted, aren't themselves 'canon' and are just the notes of one author), the Gods of Ragnarok were actually three of the Guardians of the previous universe, and thus presumably part of another 'six-fold god', with another trio of "Arma", "Gedd" and "Onn".

Given these 'Guardians' seem to exist as trios, maybe they really are instead organised into two "three-fold" gods? Maybe in this universe, the division that transformed the Guardian of Time in our universe into the Black and White Guardians instead divided the group in two?

Hmm... idk. I'm not certain, but I could be convinced.

[lotus-pear]

HIII SORRY FOR NO NEW ART have some concept sketches for the fic i'm working on instead

[emotional-support-demon-crowley]

Sometimes I remember that, in the book, Crowley absolutely almost DIED at Warlock's birthday party.

Well... was almost inconveniently discorported anyway.

That's some wild shit.

Look at that angel coming in clutch and saving the demon this time around.

[mrsroryhuntzberger]

How am I doing? Well I can feel myself regress to wanting to reread books (and their associated fanfics) from middle school which is def a symptom of depression it should be in the DSM

[valtsv]

maybe angels look like light shining on wet pavement

[methoughtsphantom]

Danny fake guardian angel au

You know how sometimes it’s highlighted how you have to be very careful on what you say in the presence of a spirit because they can twist your words and end up bidding yourself to it?? well uno-reverse-card the spirit also has to be careful on what he says because when Danny had said he owed the dude one for coming to his rescue in a gala Vlad had dragged him to, he didn’t expect that to be taken literally.

danny: wait seriously?? i literally say that all the time!

cw: not after being crowned ghost king, you haven’t

danny: but—but I was also human when I said it. doesn’t that protect me or smth

cw: *shakes his head*

danny:

danny: omg this is a nightmare

cue timmy’s brucequest period (cuz he’s the guy) being so high strung and tired, he just wants some company, which is a so low stakes thing to want the deal Danny unintentionally goes sure we can do that and pulls him towards the guy, despite Timmy never outright saying he wants company. (tim always speaks in the sanctity of his own mind, not out loud)

So. random spirit manifesting. Tim going all who the fuck are u

and Danny panicking and saying your guardian angel

Tim not being impressed while Danny promptly blushes like a moron because that did not come off as he wanted it to.

Yes accidental dead tired where the dynamic goes from Tim trying to shake this probably demon that somehow latched to him being all like ??? dude leave me alone, and Danny being there like bitch i’m trying

to

huh. im actually being protected by a spirit like he said he would. he’s strangely an idiot but also he’s overpowered and just never leaves my side which he says it’s an angel obligation but I think it’s bullshit but also hoping it’s not because it appeals to my crippling fear of abandonment (anyways he really seems to take after those little cartoon angels that poof into your shoulder to keep from me doing wrong decisions) translate into my future boyfriend seems increasingly appalled to what i am up to

meanwhile danny

Bitch you better thank your god I’m dead because otherwise I would already been killed. I did not sign up for a assassins what the fuck I thought you were a normal civilian not a literal superhero and omg that is a fruitloop. no no back off you wrinkly raisin this is my emotional support idiot you can’t have him and what do you mean you’re messing with time whatever this way I can get back to clockwork—

[bloobydabloob]

Jake Harley commission for my buddy Vulcan - @partyrockin . I do not know his @ on here… haha. I will add it if I find out

Edit : He has revealed himself to me. Helloooo